Stay With Me
by OnTheOutsideLookingIn
Summary: A collection of oneshots taking place after the season finale, dealing with the car crash. Some sad, some happy. All very RM
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is the first of what will most likely be a series of unrelated one-shots based on the season finale. Although I certainly don't need readers/reviewers to continue this (it's more for my grieving process, however pathetic it is to grieve for a TV character, than anything), I would love input. The one-shots speak for themselves.

"Hold on… hold on… it's okay, it's okay, it's all going to be okay…" the words lose their meaning after awhile, but Ryan doesn't notice. She is lying here in his arms, the last of her life draining away from her. He struggles, trying to hold in the tears. It's already too late; they are breaking through, and he won't be getting any merciful pardon from them. Later on, he'll look back and think of a million things that he should've done before everyone else came and took her away from him; he should've brushed that one invisible strand of hair out of her eyes, held her a little bit closer; he should've said "I love you" even though they both knew it and told her how beautiful she looked; most of all, he should've said that he'd always believed that they would eventually end up together, that he still didn't believe that it was over even now. Instead, he simply holds her.

It isn't fair. So many things had gone wrong for both of them. Together, they'd been dysfunctional at best. How many times had he broken her heart? How many times had he refused to let the world see just how torn up he was when they failed to make it work yet again? They'd always come back to each other, though. They'd always known, deep down, that it would never just be Ryan or just Marissa, that it would always be Ryan and Marissa: to their friends, to their family, to Newport… to them.

It's still a haze; he can't remember if he carried her to a hospital or if he called an ambulance, but somehow she ended up in a hospital and he's separated from her once again, forever. "Please… I'm not hurt. I just need to go and hold her, to make sure she's okay," he argues with the doctors, but they're being insistent and he's too weak to argue. When will he stop wishing that he'd pushed through them and stayed with her, even if it wasn't really her any longer, just for a little while? It will seem to haunt him constantly, when he finally sees beyond the four walls caging him in.

Sandy and Kirsten and Julie and Neil are the first to show up, followed by Seth and Summer. They've saved the news of Marissa's death for their arrival. Seth is for once at a loss for words, and he holds Summer woodenly while she weeps. Julie immediately becomes angry: angry at Volchok for crashing the car, angry at Ryan for driving, and angry with Marissa for being true to her nature and needing to slip away instead of staying with her. If only Marissa had been willing to stay and give Berkley a try, give her family and college and happiness a try, none of this would've happened. Julie yells and she screams and she creates a scene. The doctor tries to subdue her, and sedatives are suggested, but by the time the nurse has come Julie is in a heap on the floor crying, and a still-shocked Neil is holding her, shielding her. Kirsten simply sits in a chair with her hand covering her mouth, and Sandy, tears dangerously close to brimming over, asks in hushed tones about Ryan, the one of the two who has survived.

Seth is Ryan's first visitor. "Hey man… I'm so sorry," he says. "We didn't know about Volchok, we didn't realize… we should've been there," he continues, repeating it over and over again. "We should've been there. We should've been there. Should've… should've… been…"

"I wasn't strong enough to save her." Ryan's face contorts with pain, and he begins to cry completely for the first time. "I… I wasn't even strong enough to insist that they let me stay with her, to keep her warm. I just left her." Seth places a hesitant hand on his shoulder, surprised at the crushing force of Ryan's hug. They're men, and they shouldn't hug and cry. But Ryan's lost her, he's lost her forever, and Seth isn't about to stand by and begrudge him his grief. All my fault… What is there to say to that? How do you convince someone that they couldn't have changed fate? So Seth simply hugs him.

Sandy visits next, offering more hugs and a comfort that Seth can't. Sandy, who is so much a father to Ryan. Sandy, who would have been willing to take Marissa in… was it really the beginning of the year when he and Marissa were so new again, so freely in love? "I miss her."

"I know," Sandy says, his eyes holding pity and sorrow and a spark of anger at the injustice of it all.

"We were… we would've made it. She just needed to be free of it all. Sandy, she would've made it. We would've made it." It's repetitive, but it doesn't stop the words from bringing a fresh wave of tears to Sandy's eyes each time Ryan repeats it. Isn't it true? Sandy wonders. _Wouldn't they have made it?_ That makes him more angry than any of the other thoughts, even: _they were just two kids. Disillusioned kids, but kids all the same._

Julie comes in, and Ryan looks at her tiredly, expecting blame. He doesn't receive it, though; Julie knows that although no one could ever love Marissa half as much as her, Ryan maybe, just maybe, began to come close. "You were with her, weren't you?" He nods, tears still running down his face, with no connection to the incoherent thoughts he can hardly form. "Then she wasn't alone? She wasn't… my girl…" Julie breaks off, the weight of it too much for her. Ryan is unable to respond, and so she comes closer to him, forcing both of them to look each other in the face. "She was with you? She knew that she was loved?"

"I held her when…" no more can come out, and Julie understands. She's satisfied, and in a moment of uncharacteristic compassion, she touches his shoulder lightly, leaving. Kirsten comes in quickly, sitting down on the bed next to him, taking him in her arms. She and Ryan have never been much for physical affection, but it's natural to her now, the only thing that makes sense.

"Oh, Ryan, I'm so, so sorry…" He's gone, only a shell of him left. His face is hollow and he won't speak, but still she rocks him back and forth as more tears flow. When she finally leaves, a doctor is once again looking skeptically at one of the group; Summer, this time.

"I don't care about your fucking visitor policy, do you understand?" The doctor tells her to keep it down, reminds her that she can see him tomorrow – "My best fucking friend in the whole world just died. My… my sister… we were going to be… she just died. And the only other person in the world who knows what I'm feeling is in there, and there is no way in hell that you're keeping me from him!" Her voice is cracking, her lips are chapped and her face is blotchy. When Graduation Day began, she didn't have a hair out of place, and now every single strand is tangled and messy, though she hardly cares. The doctor sighs, giving in for reasons neither understand, and she storms past him. "Chino? Are you… are you awake?" She's suddenly timid, reverting to a name that she gave him long ago and hardly ever uses anymore.

"We weren't over. We were… she knew that I loved her, didn't she, Summer?" Ryan is finally back, and there is a broken hope in his eyes that rips her remaining strength to shreds. Ugly, strangled sounds make their way up through her throat before she can reach out and take his hand and reply.

"Ryan, she knew. She always, always knew." More words want to come, but they won't, so she simply takes a place on the edge of the bed, resting her head on top of his.

"Good. It's good that she knew," he whispers, and they slowly fall asleep.


	2. Some Day

**A/N:** Yes, you get a bittersweet one-shot now. We'll see what happens with the next one, but hope you enjoy for now.

Marissa sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, leafing through the pamphlets of Berkley that littered it, casting a hesitant glance at the ticket burning through the envelope lying innocently next to everything else. Jimmy had sent it in the mail, explaining it earlier that morning over the phone. "Honey, now more than ever I know that you might need a change. If you don't want to come, that's all right. Newport has never been kind to you, though, and I don't want you to feel like you need to stay for Julie or for Kaitlyn or for anyone else." The unspoken name was there, hanging between them. _Ryan._

He hadn't visited her since she'd been released from the hospital, in stark contrast to the five-hour visits that he'd made every day that she'd been there. Five months, five months of her life had been wasted lying useless, unaware of the world around her. He'd been with her when she'd woken up, and he'd left in a rush to get a nurse, not bothering to come back afterward. She'd wanted to ask him why so many times, and there had been several days when she'd had the phone in her hand, fingers poised to dial his number. Marissa had seriously considered going to the Cohen's house, but she didn't want him to have to see her in her current condition, however vain it was. Three of her ribs had been broken, and her left arm was still in a sling. The surgeries to fix the almost shattered bone had already been performed and had worked well, and physical therapy had slowly taught her to walk again, one of the motor skills that she'd lost from mild head injuries.

A voice cleared, and she looked up, strangely satisfied to see him there. She was past being surprised; a month ago, maybe, but by now she'd settled into waiting. The thought of leaving before saying goodbye to him hadn't crossed her mind. "Hey." The word was short, cut off unnaturally fast, and she knew that he was nervous and trying to formulate words to communicate his feelings.

"I thought you'd never get around to stopping by," she greeted him wryly, clearing a place on the bed with her good arm, her movements ungraceful. "Sit," she motioned, and he obliged. Most people would've held each other at a distance after going through something like that together and then spending so long apart, but not Ryan and Marissa. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and his body stiffened only slightly. It wouldn't have done any good to try to make him look at her, and she knew that. There were so many things about Ryan that she knew.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. She didn't give any affirmation, waiting for him to continue. Two years ago she might've cried and made him leave; a year ago she might've accepted the apology with no questions asked. By now they were different people, though, and she knew that he needed to tell her _why_, even if she would forgive him without knowing. So she let him talk. "When you were in my arms, by the side of the road, there was a moment when I thought that I'd lost you. I… god, Riss, I couldn't even think straight. Just when we were finally breaking free of it all, when we might've had a chance to have a 'some day,' it all disappeared. All I could think was that I couldn't face it without you, I didn't want to." He traced circles on her leg absentmindedly. "When they told me you were still alive… I need you to know that I never wanted to leave your side. If you'd been asleep for twenty years, I would've been there every day, just praying for you to wake up."

"But I did wake up," she commented; not arguing, not accusing, simply stating.

"Yeah, you did. I hadn't thought that far ahead… I never was good with the long term. So I… I left you. It didn't even cross my mind that you might've needed me more then than you did when you were still asleep." Tears rushed unbidden to her eyes. Almost always in the past, apologies were used to gloss over their problems, or something only uttered when the other had pushed the truth in the offender's face. Almost always in the past, she'd been the one who needed to apologize.

"It's okay. I didn't expect you to stay with me." It was only half truth; the first question every day she'd been in that hospital after waking up had been "Where's Ryan?" In a way she'd known, though; neither of them had ever been good at sticking with it when things were less than ideal.

"It's not okay. I left you. Even though I knew that you needed me, I left you. So… I'm sorry." It was bittersweet; she knew that this wasn't an apology to be followed by a grand declaration of love. Ryan might never forgive himself for abandoning her, and she might never be able to save them in spite of that, if they didn't go their own ways for awhile.

"You know that I don't hold it against you, don't you?" He didn't answer. "I would've done the same thing. If it was you… I wouldn't have waited around for months. I would've been drunk in some hellhole crying night and day." He grabbed her hand loosely, more out of habit than anything.

"Are you still going to go? To… to Greece?" She sighed, glad that they weren't facing each other.

"I can't stay here, Ryan. This is Kaitlyn's time, and she'll only resent me more if I ruin it for her. Julie and Neil need a chance to be happy without worrying about what trouble I'm getting into… and Jimmy needs to know that he's still my father and that he's taking care of his family."

"What about you? What about… us?" It wasn't like Ryan to plead with her; almost always before, she'd been the one hanging on. Tears slipped down her face, and she rested her chin on his shoulder, burying her face in his neck.

"If I stay here then nothing will change for us. We'll never grow up; become who we're meant to. It'll become an obligation and a burden instead of a relationship. Maybe if we'd done it right in the past instead of always rushing back to each other or running to other people, we wouldn't be here now." A small part of her wanted him to tell her that it wasn't true, but he didn't. When he spoke, she could hear the tears in his voice.

"I don't know if I can live without you again."

"That night, you asked me what made me think it was over. It's not over, Ryan. It's just on hold for a little while. What makes you think that after everything else, we can't make it through this?" He squeezed her hand and nodded slowly. They sat together silently for awhile more before he kissed her on the forehead and said goodbye.

"I won't ask you if I can drive you to the airport this time… look how well that turned out before." Neither of them laughed, but she gave him a small smile.

"Just so long as you promise to pick me up when I get back."

"I'll be here when you can come home again. I promise." Something about having him promise soothed her; she'd never known him to give his word and not follow through. It didn't ease the pain of leaving him any. The thought of not having him around in some form had never crossed her mind until she had decided to go.

Three days later at the airport she clutched her bag uneasily, her tearful goodbyes to Julie and Summer over with. Something made her turn around, and she caught sight of Seth running up to her, out of breath. "So, I know that you and Ryan are doing this whole dramatic Hallmark 'I'll wait for you' deal, but he wanted to give you a card, and since Ryan and words, well, are really pretty rare, I thought that you might want it. Have a… have a good flight." He gave her an awkward hug and she smiled at him, waving a little as he walked away. She didn't open up the card until the flight was almost over.

_Dear Riss:_

_I'll keep it short. I've been thinking of you a lot these past few days, and I wanted you to know that Berkley is great. You're probably right, though; it isn't meant for you. You've got other things to do, some that I can't even imagine. I hope that you remember to keep smiling on all of your adventures and remember that when you're ready to come home, I'll be here waiting. _

_Love,_

_Ry_

She wiped furiously at her eyes, trying to stop the tears from pooling. Already she missed him more than she could've imagined. There was something about the two of them that made them resilient, and she knew that eventually, when she'd found the strength to rescue herself once in awhile, she'd be back, and he would be there. With that thought in mind, she took a deep breath and prepared to step off the plain.


End file.
